British PM Seeks Minority Government Following Election Losses

In light of the fact that Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has called on the Prime Minister to resign as she had sought a mandate and not got it, and has asserted that his party is ready to form the government (with the help of others), it remains to be seen if the Tories can command a majority in the House.

If Corbyn had claimed seven more seats, the total seats won by Labour, the Lib Dems, the SNP, Plaid Cymru, the Green Party and one independent MP would have come to 322 - enough to dethrone the Conservatives of their power. May called the snap vote in a bid to strengthen her mandate ahead of exit talks with the European Union. The Conservatives are forecast to win 314 seats, followed by Labour with 266 seats. "It has to be said, young voters under 30 who disproportionately like the policies of Jeremy Corbyn were expected to turn out in quite low numbers and they turned out in droves yesterday and that really has pushed the agenda more in Jeremy Corbyn's favour and away from the conservatives who really tapped into an older constituency in recent elections", says French. Speaking Friday on Europe 1 radio, French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said he doesn't believe British voters have changed their minds about leaving the bloc. May will face the tall task of first fending off challenges to her own leadership and then attempting to negotiate a satisfactory Brexit with a razor-thin majority. Negotiations with European officials had been set to begin on June 19.

Kai Ryssdal: I think we ought to start probably, with a definition of terms here, as to what happens now with Brexit.

"Theresa May is certainly the strongest leader that we have at the moment", David Jones, a junior Brexit minister, told the BBC. "If she has an ounce of self-respect, she will resign", said Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron, while Conservative M.P. and former minister Anna Soubry said May "is in a very hard place... she now has to obviously consider her position".

"We are still in government and, after all is said and done, Labour were 50, 60 seats behind us".

Opposition party leaders were also quick to call for her resignation, including the Liberal Demo- crats' Tim Farron, who said: "We will now have a government that is weaker and less stable at a time when we are about to embark on the most hard and complex negotiations in our history". I think the whole debate over what kind of Brexit we - the nation needs and the nation wants, I think, is coming back to the fore.

The poll was released after polls closed at 10 p.m. (2100GMT), ending an unsettled national election held in the shadow of three deadly attacks in as many months.

May had spent the campaign denouncing Corbyn as the weak leader of a spendthrift party that would crash Britain's economy and flounder in Brexit talks, while she would provide "strong and stable leadership" to clinch a good deal for Britain.